r/breakingmom

It's just me and no one is coming to help. What are some basic/easy meals I can feed my 3yo while I white knuckle through this? It's been a lot of pasta and junk food so far, but I need to do better. My grandmother died 3 days ago and I can't deal with the grief of her passing and the feeling that I'm failing my daughter at the same time. I barely have any emotional bandwidth to deal with little kid bullshit right now (I snapped at her like 47 times today), so I at least want to be feeding her something decent. Any recommendations are appreciated

I feel bad typing it. But it is what it is. I do not like my 6-year-old daughter. I love her. Every day she can be very sweet but she is also incredibly unpleasant to be around. She is rude, mean, stubborn, and will unleash fury when she doesn't get what she wants - I'm talking screaming, crying, hyperventilating, yelling at her father and I that she doesn't love us, and sometimes getting physical like pushing.

She has a "moment" at least once a day to varying degrees.

I have a 12-year-old stepdaughter who is super easy and kind. I have a 4 almost 5-year-old son who is so easy going and sweet. My daughter has been like this since she was 4. Every day is wearing on me. She's exhausting and making me hate my life.

We spend lots of time together intentionally because I do work a demanding job as does my husband so we carve out time every day and plenty on the weekends to spend time as a family. But my daughter will find a way to make it unpleasant for everyone.

I've read How to Talk to Little Kids and implemented tools from it. No go. Recently I read Explosive Child and have implemented the advice from there. She is not willing to participate. She stuffs her fingers in her ears when I try the empathy step when she's in a good mood and growls at me.​ I never try to have discussions when she's emotionally heightened but when I try when she is neutral or happy it puts her in a bad mood.

Previously I've tried punishments - time outs, taking away things or privilege, even once (and I'm ashamed to admit it) I spanked her. The only thing I can say is that since trying to implement tactics from the books her breakdowns are not as severe or long as when we were "laying down the law" but they still happen.

I don't even know the right course of action anymore. I truly do not believe she has anything going on like autism or ADHD. She can be an exemplary person. She shows us how much she loves us every day but she'll turn on a dime. I feel like we are all just waiting for a ticking time bomb to explode.

I feel lost and every day it takes my husband and I maximum effort to not lose it on her.​ I just don't like her at all. If I'm being honest, I resent her at times for the total misery she puts her siblings through

The only silver lining is that I've heard great things from her kindergarten teacher that she is incredibly kind at school. I'm very worried though that after this summer her behavior will seep into first grade and we will start getting calls/negative feedback.

I feel like a failure.

How do you know if you're in perimenopause or just post partum in a later decade of your life?

I'm on day 76 of this current menstrual cycle (no I'm not pregnant again, I've been testing incessantly) but also no sign of ovulation this cycle. I'm almost 8 months post partum and I feel like I was pretty much regulated by this point with my other babies but I was in my 20s, not my mid-30s. I've had labs like 4 months ago and my progesterone was tanked, like postmenopausal level tanked but estrogen is still high, testeorone was normal?

So idk. I really don't want it to be peri but omg im scared its perimenopause!

My kids were with my mom this weekend. I badly needed the time to rest and unfuck the house because I've been in a bad bad bad bout of depression and burnout and no one gives a shit. But as always son watched tons of YouTube at Grandma's and got his heart set on a game mode I can't install and is losing his shit with disappointment.

And then before leaving she was smugly telling about how son "just isn't excited for camp this week" as though I don't have fucking eyes or ears or a brain. Yeah he's not excited because he wants to stay home and watch YouTube all day. This ain't news to me. But it irritates me because my mom has never had anything positive to say about any camp I've ever put my kids in and I think it affects the kids view of the camps (like my teen used to go to a good camp and seemed to love it at the time but my mom always had negative shit to say about it and now as a teen my daughter has nothing good to say about it either).

And then as she heads out the door she dumps her suspicion that my son has a tic on me. He has AuDHD and a tic probably means a whole revamping of his medication which will be a whole thing I don't have the spoons to deal with. I've already been in horrible burnout dealing with my teens endless medical issues and sons difficult to treat neurodivergence and no one notices or cares and all they have to offer me is more fucking appointments and more things to treat . And yeah its irrational to be irritated over this but this is another thing I would notice because I have eyes and ears and brain and it would just be nice to talk to another adult without them dumping bad news on me constantly while my son insistently talks at me me demanding my 100% to talk about a YouTube video for the entire 10 minutes I have to talk to said adult.

Just pisses me off because the little bit of time I got with the kids gone helped some but now it feels 10 times worse because God forbid someone keep them for a day without dumping a bunch of bad news on me.

God I need to be fucking alone for at least a week without cooking or cleaning or hauling everyone to constant appointments or runs to the pharmacy but if I say that people will just roll their eyes. No one understands how close I am to crashing out and everyone will be all shocked Pikachu when it happens.

Quick question for anyone with experience. Do glass stove tops on old electric stoves ever break spontaneously?

I woke up to a broken stovetop this morning after being very angry at my three children last night. We had a party and they were rude to the guests and each other to the point everyone was uncomfortable and left early. I told my kids and husband what I thought of them and went to bed early.

My untrustworthy husband says that the broken stovetop is something that can happen spontaneously and does it isn’t necessarily mean someone smashed the stove top. But it seems unlikely given everything else.

The party was at a community facility, not my house so no one would have been home until after the party.

I feel like my husband just doesn’t want to deal with the fact that our children are turning out so poorly. But he might’ve broken it himself and lied because he doesn’t want to pay for it. We keep separate finances because he is bad with money. I pay for most big expenses as the default because I make more and am good with money.

Since my son was born, I've dedicated almost all of my time to caring for him because he's medically complex and has significant disabilities. As a result, my husband has become our daughter's primary caregiver for the past 2 years.

My daughter is a very sensitive and strong-willed child. Lately, she rejects me constantly. She tells me, "Go away," "I don't want Mommy," "I want Daddy," and "No Mommy." I want to rebuild our relationship, but I don't know how when she doesn't even want to be around me. If I try to insist on playing with her, she'll usually have a meltdown, and I don't want to force interactions that make her feel worse. I'd love to spend more one-on-one time with her, but there are two big challenges:

- My husband isn't medically trained to care for my son for long periods, so it's difficult for me to consistently carve out dedicated time with my daughter. I'm worried that only seeing her one-on-one occasionally won't be enough to rebuild our bond. She has a very strong sense of order and routine: since Dad has been the one with her on so many activities, she'd prefer Dad continues to do so instead of a different person.

- She doesn't want me right now, so I don't even know how to gently reconnect. How do you rebuild trust and closeness with a child who keeps asking for the other parent?

Anyone else sick of dealing with men who pitch these ideas that sound nice only to find out they’ve put no thought into the logistics?

My husband walked up to me this morning and said, “would you be open to driving somewhere and having a picnic today?”

I told him yes but I have some follow up questions first like what are we eating, where are we going, and is he talking lunch or dinner?

His answer? “I don’t want to spend money on sandwiches or takeout so I figured we could eat the food we have here. You know, grill up some chicken and make a salad. Then we could drive to [location an hour away], see if they have picnic tables, and have lunch.” Sir, we have spent the last 2 days out of state visiting family and friends. Not only do we have no prepared food here, we have no GROCERIES. All our chicken is frozen and we don’t have salad supplies.

So you want me, who literally just woke up, to plan a picnic meal, go shopping and/or defrost and marinade chicken, grill up said chicken, then pack up the car and a toddler to drive somewhere we don’t even know if they have tables? All in the next 2.5 hours for lunch? When I haven’t even had my coffee yet? Not to mention the fucking heatwave and you want to be in direct sun at NOON?!

“You always shoot down my ideas!”

Same lack of a full thought earlier this week. I was frustrated about having to cook dinner with our toddler demanding I take her outside to play now. He said “you never accept help! I could cook tonight but you won’t let me.” I said, “great! Here’s the meat. What are you putting on it?” He said he didn’t think about seasoning the food but he’d do teriyaki sauce. I said “that’s not gluten free and will make me sick.” He said, “oh, well that’s all I can think of so I guess you should do it.”

Like, motherfucker, I would LOVE for you to step up and help! I’m not being controlling because I like it. You just literally don’t think anything through. You don’t start cooking dinner at 5pm. It starts at 9am when you take something out to defrost or 3 days earlier when you’re at the store meal planning and buying ingredients.

I’m all for spontaneity but he clearly has no interest in taking on the full mental load. It’s total CEO energy: he’s the fun idea guy and he expects everyone else to figure it out

They can’t bear to see me resting, sleeping, enjoying a meal, enjoying personal space, enjoying quiet time. They MUST disrupt it. It doesn’t matter that i cooked them a meal and bought them a family size box of chips. They want my one little bag of chips that I craved all day and snuck off the the gas station to purchase. They don’t want me to sit on the toilet and scroll on my phone. They don’t want me to take an uninterrupted bath or shower. They can’t bear to see it, so they must disrupt it.

I know there will be a day in upcoming years that they don’t even consider me or want to spend time with me so I should value these years. But, Jesus Christ.

My husband and I have been together for years, and from the very beginning we talked about wanting children. It was something that was important to both of us, and he always told me he wanted kids too.

After we got married, everything changed. He told me he didn't want children anymore and that he didn't see himself as a father. I was devastated. I remember telling him that we should probably divorce because I didn't think it was fair for either of us. It wasn't fair for me to give up my dream of becoming a mom just to make him happy, because I knew I would end up resenting him. At the same time, I didn't think it was fair to pressure him into having a child he truly didn't want.

After a lot of conversations, he told me he was sure he wanted to have a baby with me. Before we started trying, I even asked him multiple times if he was absolutely certain because I knew myself. I knew that even if parenting was hard, I would probably want more than one child someday.

We had our son, and he's the greatest blessing in my life.

Now we've started having this conversation again, and my husband told me he doesn't want another baby. I know life isn't easy. Parenting is hard, finances are real, and raising kids takes a lot out of you. But I also work full-time. It's not like he's the sole provider or that all of the responsibility falls on him.

To be honest, I'm starting to regret not going through with the divorce back then. Not because I don't love him, but because I feel like we're facing the exact incompatibility I was afraid of years ago.

The truth is, we've also been dealing with other serious issues in our marriage. I reached a point where I told him things needed to change or we would have to separate because I couldn't keep living the way we were. To his credit, he listened. He recognized the things he was doing that were hurting our relationship, and he has genuinely been trying to change. I truly appreciate that, and I don't want this post to make him sound like a bad person because he isn't. He's a good man, a great dad, and he's been making an effort.

But I still feel like I already do almost everything on my own anyway. I work, I help support our family, and I carry a lot of the responsibilities at home. That's part of why this hurts so much. It makes me question whether I'm sacrificing my dreams while already carrying so much.

I genuinely love family life. I love being a mom. I always imagined having more than one child, and I wanted to build that future with someone who shared that dream.

I'm not saying my husband is wrong for feeling the way he does. People can change, and becoming a parent can change someone's perspective. But I also don't think it's wrong for me to feel heartbroken that we're back in this same place after everything we've already been through.

Has anyone else been in this situation? If so, what happened? Did you stay together and find a way through it, or did you realize you wanted different futures? Right now I feel heartbroken, exhausted, and like none of this is fair.

To keep it brief, husband and I both struggle with mental health. Lately his has gotten worse, and manifests with grumpiness and a short fuse. I do my best to help support him, though he is very resistant to venting to me, so I am limited. We are both in counseling (separate AND couples).

But I’m just so tired. The other night, our 8 year old was being needy at bedtime, as she’s apt to be. It was his night. His response to her as he was leaving the room and she was being needy was “oh fuck off.”

She heard this, and naturally, it upset her. It upset ME. I text him from the other room wondering what in the hell made him think that was ok, and my texts escalated to me telling him that the only time he is really nice to me lately is when he wants sex (because that’s how it feels).

He of course felt bad and apologized to our daughter. But didn’t apologize to me. In fact, he continued to be distant the rest of the week until I find out he’s angry with ME and I hurt HIS feelings for implying that he’s a “user.”

This is our typical pattern. Anytime I express how he may be making me feel in a negative way, he becomes angry with me for having those feelings, or offending him somehow. I never get to be the one who was hurt. It always ends up being my fault, and I get zero compassion from him. The therapist is way too neutral on this for me, though she’s quite good with the other stuff. It’s been 11 years of this though (marriage). I just feel like I’ve reached a breaking point. He basically verbally abuses our daughter, then makes ME feel bad for having strong feelings that I’d been holding in. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I was so jealous the other day hearing my friend talk about how she got into a drunken argument with her husband and spilled all these things she’s resentful over/that upset her. She said he wrote her a 7 page letter the next day telling her how sorry he was and how he had no idea, and thanking her for sticking by him thru his previous opioid addiction. I would DIE for my husband to have that kind of compassion towards me. If I confessed things that make me mad while drunk, it would just become a nasty, loud fight without a resolution. I want compassion. I’m tired of trying. I feel like I’m married to a toddler. Sometimes this “til death do us part” shit feels overrated as hell.

He stopped getting me gifts because I never appreciated them, and you stop putting in effort for people who don’t appreciate things apparently.

I am blowing this weekend’s incident out of proportion because I he didn’t violently whip his hat at the dog like I “allege”, and he would never hit his dog because he loves him.

I never worked on myself in therapy and couples counseling was him being ganged up on all the time, and it was about everything he was doing wrong.

Today was the official end of my marriage. I told him we married the wrong people and that was fine. That he could leave, and I would find a way to afford our apartment on our own. That there was no coming back from any of this. And I told him he had more chances than most men have to try and save their marriages and family, and he blew it.

I feel so free. I can’t wait to be a single mom next year. I don’t even care if he becomes the “fun parent” and I’m saddled with the most custodial time. He won’t be able to handle a full day by himself multiple times per week, especially overnights by himself, I don’t think he’ll go for 50/50.

All I need is my freedom and my baby.

Why the flying fuck are you setting off something that sounds like a mortar at 11pm. The kids are scared, the dogs are scared, the wild animals are absolutely terrified, and that’s just my house. Imagine that times a few million.

Came back from vacation utterly exhausted and mildly sick almost a week ago. My son ran roughshed on the house this week covering every surface in toys and art supplies and then moving on to the next thing. I was just happy he wasn't glued to a screen so I let him and didn't have the spoons to make him clean up after himself .

Today I'm still exhausted but my son is with my mom and the entire house is fucking grody because I haven't had energy to clean. So I decided to get started on that with the kids out of the house.

And my husband does that thing men do when they see their wife trying to get the house in order and they decide to help by picking a project of minimal priority and hyper focus on that. In my husband's case it's cleaning the shower. And I love that he cleans the shower. It's something he's taken ownership of since we got the house and I'm grateful that I don't ever have to do it. But the house is filled with clutter and the surfaces are gross and I have friends coming over next weekend. And now I can't even put things away in our closet because the bathroom is the only way into our closet and I have to step over him to get through.

So my motivation is immediately killed outright before I barely began to work on unfucking the house.

I’m 31. My grandma died a week ago. She was 80 and had a rare lung disease that caused COPD and liver damage. She has been so sick for the last 5 years and 2 years ago she had a stroke. I know grief is not a competition but I feel stupid being so upset over an 80 year old woman when people have lost their parents or children or siblings.

I was so lucky that I met most of my great-grandparents. I still have a great-grandma alive and my last great-grandpa died last year. So I just always assumed she’d live until her 90s or even 100 like her parents and in laws.

I’ve lost 2 classmates (went to a very small school), a dear friend, a cousin and a family friends daughter. But fuck the death of my 80 year old grandma feels like it’s going to kill me. I don’t know why.

We texted daily. She could barely leave the house the last 3 years so she was bored. I basically texted her every little thing I did. Even when she had a hard time replying after her stroke. I had teen parents so I lived with her and my grandpa until my parents got married. She taught me the hobbies I love. Gardening, cross-stitch, cards and canning.

I miss her and I want her back. I want her to be healthy again and I want her back. I’m having a hard time caring for my 14 month old. My husband is being supportive and helpful but I just can’t cope.

I love him to death but how can one person be so fucking clueless?

Bromos… I am 29 weeks pregnant, high risk pregnancy, basically gonna be housebound for the last two months of this pregnancy.

MIL whined about how she wouldn’t see us this year and wouldn’t see granddaughter (our nr 1 kiddo) this summer and so of course he agreed and said how much it would suck to not have a little bit of family vacation this summer.

So off to the in laws we go, for 10 days. it’s a heatwave, and their part of Europe have it BAD. 45 degrees to the 25 we got where we live. But hey there is a pool and I’m. a trooper right?

We get there, kiddo gets sick. Two trips to emergency care. Now, this kid is rarely ever sick but when she is it always present atypically. Weird kiddo I guess. Cue the complaining of in laws that she is “always sick”. She gets treated, gets better, etc.

Then I get sick. Fever and headache and bad coughing, at 29 weeks with a high risk pregnancy. I spend two emergency care trips convincing doctors to fucking do something. Have a bad reaction to the first antibiotics, need new ones.

Needless to say I did not participate in most of the holidays merriment. No boating, dinners out, fun times for me. Mostly suffering. But hey, kiddo is having fun so I make do. Now we head home, I’m still coughing up a storm, worried about baby in utero, and I find out whilst I was sick they bought daughter a ton of useless plastic shit, toys and stickers, pens and coloring books, when she already has a 1000. And we are to take them home with us. And I’ll let you have a guess as to whom is supposed to find space for them somewhere.

And in the car, he says: “Good holidays, huh? We had so much fun! Too bad you were sick...”

So Bromos, I am now sick at home, my kid has watched way too much tv this morning, I have a thousand coloring pens and books to sort through not to mention all the crap hubby brought back, and I have no energy and I’m low key planning a murder…

Send me strength. I love him to bits but he is SO clueless.

My husband has a work event he got ticket for and arranged for his dad to watch our kids. He mentioned his dad would watch the kids overnight, sounds great right but we already had a trip to see my family planned and I arranged a for our dogs to be boarded in a place along the way due to limited availability in other nearby places We have to leave early to drive 1.5 hours in order to drop them off in the morning drop off window by 10am.

Now here is the kicker, he just told me today the event is over 2 hours away! If I knew that before, I would have changed the dates for our trip or made other arrangements for our dogs. I am beyond upset.

I feel like he cant plan anything and I have to do it all.

He also expected me to be the DD....and Tuesday is my birthday. This event is the day after. So I am now expected to get my house in order, pack, get our dogs food, etc ready..which will be probably on my birthday, and then drive 2 hours the next day and drive back, pack the car, clean the house and do the other prep..happy fucking birthday to me and there goes our rare date

7 weeks PP from my second with an almost 4 year old. Sweet but sometimes clueless husband. Currently on mat leave as the breadwinner, my husband has been picking up extra hours at his job to try to help money stretch to 16 weeks. I have discovered that two kids is infinitely harder than 1, and when left alone with them for 12 hours a day for 5-6 days a week, maybe I am kind of a shit mom. Like, the mom I've been trying hard not to be. The kind of mom that yells at the 4 year old and makes them cry because they won't listen. The kind of mom that doesn't register things with the baby, like the dehydration that could have killed her the day we got home from the hospital. The kind of mom that can't deal with the annoying 4 year old bedtime zoomies and sends them to their room for running back and forth and breathing loud. The kind of mom that took the baby out to the park in 95+ degree weather because the toddler was going crazy from no exercise. Am I worried I am a bad mom? Yes, bromos, I am. But I am more worried that I am an unsafe mom and will inadvertently hurt one of my kids just from stupid amounts of sleep deprivation and frustration. I've told the husband that his picking up extra hours has to stop, much as I appreciate him trying to get me more time with the baby. He makes half of what I do, so it's really just more stressful trying to wrangle two small ones. And yet he has picked up an extra 12 hours tomorrow, after having fireworks go off like a war zone in our neighborhood. So tomorrow is going to go well, I imagine I will once again have a short temper with my 4 year old and slowly ruin our relationship. Or go crazy. Whichever comes first. Please send good vibes my way.

… and lately that’s been weighing so heavy on me.

I had planned to move to a beautiful new state after graduating high school, but life happened. A family member was in a terrible accident. I stayed while they were in their coma, decided on getting a second job where I met my now husband.

He had a kid already and couldn’t move, so I put my plans on pause. We went through the wringer, my aunt died and 3 months later my grandma died.

We ended up having 3 beautiful kids, but the last 15 years have been no walk in the park.

Assumed cheating on his end, lack of help around the house, horrible anger problems he’s not the man i ever wanted to be with.

I’ve always wanted a manly man that takes charge, but also will be soft with me and our kids.

My husband yells all the time, doesn’t lift a finger to cook, clean, wash dishes, laundry, he barely takes care of the yard work. That usually falls to me.

I used to spend the 4th at the lake growing up, and I always wanted my kids to experience that too. He however hates the lake. He hates fireworks, never wants to do anything but sit home. I would love to be the house that has cute themed parties, but he hates having people over.

I had hoped that we would be home owners by now, but we’re still renting, still paycheck to paycheck. Vacations? Ha. Not happening.

I’m literally living just to live right now.

Everything I wanted for me and my kids isn’t happening, and doesn’t seem like it ever will.

My son’s first birthday is later this month!!
l’m so excited to have made it this far breastfeeding but it feels like the end is nowhere in sight. We do solids 4-5x a day (and this boy can EAT) and he still nurses 4-5x on average, sometimes more if teething or going through a developmental leap.

At this point he’s too old for bottles and won’t drink a full serving of BM or formula out of a cup. He will pretty much fuss until the boob is out regardless of what else I try to do to comfort him. He goes to bed at 8 and then wakes up super early (~4am give or take) begging for the boob no matter how much he’s had the day before.

I’m really hoping to be able to lose wxxxxt, be able to “garden” occasionally to decompress and start a few medications soon but at this point it feels like he’s going to want to keep nursing after a year. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can put on my nipples to deter him or anything else I could try once he hits a year. If it was up to my husband I’d just keep nursing but I’m SPENT. I have long term sleep deprivation and am physically drained (and usually hungry) all the time despite having perfectly normal bloodwork.

I’d love any advice. I’m tempted to just start cow’s milk a few weeks early since my kid tolerates other dairy well (he LOVES shredded cheese).

I got some of the best advice from an IBCLC when I was struggling with low milk supply and I thought I'd share it for anyone who could use it!

So it does require a pump. I have a lansinoh double electric. She told me to turn it on, let it run for the preliminary 2 minute letdown stimulation phase, and then let it run for at least 15-20 minutes of the expression phase. Once that's done, do the whole process a second time, making sure to allow the 2 minute stimulation phase again. It signals to the body that an additional letdown is needed and over time starts producing more milk automatically. Try to do this every 3 hours for several days straight. I went from 3-4 oz at a time to eventually getting up to 10-11 oz at once. It definitely takes a lot of time and effort but it was so worth it for me.

If this is common knowledge, please disregard. I just had no idea this could work and was pleasantly surprised! I hope this helps someone! 🤍